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She would gladly have left her rooone to stay with one of the maids, but they ithout doubt all asleep

The only person in the house likely to be awake, or ould have brains enough to comprehend her nervousness, was Miss Aldclyffe, but Cytherea never cared to go to Miss Aldclyffe's rooh she was alelcoainst her will

The oft-repeated noise of switches grew heavier upon the wall, and was now inter of dice The wind blew stronger; there ca, then a crash, and so off and fall of a branch froainst the wall, and the inter, ceased from that time

Well, it was the tree which had caused the noises The unexplained matter was that neither of the trees ever touched the walls of the house during the highest wind, and that trees could not rattle like a ht, 'Is it the intention of Fate that so connected with these noises shall influencethe dilemma she fell into a troubled sleep, and drea whipped with dry bones suspended on strings, which rattled at every blow like those of a ibbet; that she shifted and shrank and avoided every blow, and they fell then upon the wall to which she was tied She could not see the face of the executioner for his mask, but his form was like Manston's

'Thank Heaven!' she said, when she awoke and saw a faint light struggling through her blind 'Noere those noises?' To settle that question seemed more to her than the event of the day

She pulled the blind aside and looked out All was plain The evening previous had closed in with a grey drizzle, borne upon a piercing air from the north, and now its effects were visible The hoary drizzle still continued; but the trees and shrubs were laden with icicles to an extent such as she had never before witnessed A shoot of the diaer; all the boughs in the park were bent al incuhs had snapped beneath their burden, and lay in heaps upon the icy grass Opposite her eye, on the nearest tree, was a fresh yellow scar, shohere the branch that had terrified her had been splintered from the trunk